Learned a strong lesson long ago with the onset of email…
Email, and now all things electronic, are forever!!
Be smart and not impulsive baby!!
My Dad has never sent an email or text message … ever … for that very reason.
I let everyone know that text is the best way to get ahold of me and voicemail is the absolute worst. If you leave me a voicemail you better leave me a text telling me to listen to it or I’m not doing it. And if I happen to be in my voicemails for some odd reason the most annoying VM of all time is “hey its Rob, call me back. Thanks.” Did you really need to leave a voicemail for that shit? First of all Rob, fucking text me. Second of all Rob, I can see that you called.
My wife does the same garbage. We talk like 2-4 times a day on the phone and constantly texting eachother. If she calls and I don’t answer because I’m in a meeting or something, she leaves a stupid “hey its me just giving you a call” voicemail. Why do I need that? And because I don’t actually check my voicemails, I don’t even realize she’s doing the shit until people start telling me my voicemail is full. Then I go to my voicemail and I’ve got 15 of those “its me” voicemails from various people.
Transcription in voicemail is getting to become the norm. If the voice platform doesn’t include it, along with video-conferencing and collaboration, it’s time to shop.
I don’t like, nor do I listen to, voicemails. Text messages are a far better means of communication.
I’d put calling an office phone as even worse. On the slight chance you catch me there I may answer. I don’t look at missed calls on that phone and have never opened that voicemail. Hell I wouldn’t even know how. Shoot me a text or hit me up on teams and tell me what it’s about. I’ll determine the level of urgency. If you don’t tell me what it’s about I will assume it’s not urgent.
I get transcribed voicemails, but the program isn’t that accurate, so sometimes you get garbled messages.
I tell the front desk girl to not even offer to send someone to my voicemail or whatever if I’m not in the office. Its pointless. That little light will blink for weeks before I finally delete the messages (without listening to 90% of them) just to get rid of the blinky light.
I remember one time I screwed up and a client called and left me a nasty voicemail. I was young and this guy was high enough up on the food chain that he could have had me fired if he really wanted to…or at least reassigned. He left it on Friday but I didn’t get it until the following week. At the end of the message he said “and I certainly hope you don’t check this message today and have it ruin your weekend.” Well buddy, you didn’t have to worry about that!
On a personal note my dad used to leave me really long, really loving voicemails. Like if you knew it was the last voicemail you were ever going to leave your kid, nearly every one of his voicemails sounded like that. I would listen to them but delete them. Then he died a few days after leaving me a few of those voicemails, but I had already deleted them. The cell phone company said there was no way to recover them. I think there was they just didn’t want to be bothered with me.
The best compromise I see that also addresses a lot of pain points are from cloud voice providers that bundle everything into a single app. You have one phone number that is issued by your office. You never provide your own cell number, especially since so many offices are BYOD. All of your calls, messages and texts come to that app. Start a text or a chat session from your office computer and continue it from your cell. When the workday is done, mark yourself as “out” and you’re officially off the clock. Whatever communication you’re having from your cellphone at that point is personal. That Teams-like experience, but with better voice and calling capabilities is where the leaders in that space set themselves apart.
I have nothing to gain in saying this, but I haven’t seen anything better for a lower price than what you can get from 8x8. The featureset, refinement of the app and price puts it above the other major players, including Microsoft and Cisco in my book. Gartner has them in the same magic quadrant, but when you compare their apps, it’d be easy to see why someone would rank them higher than Cisco, Microsoft and Avaya/Ring Central. The pain points you guys are discussing here are common, and addressed by the vendors in their current platforms.
/Nerdposting
We used to just forward our office phones to our cell phones. It was a pretty simple process where you picked the office phone up and hit “forward” then it asked you for the number and you just dialed in your phone number. At the end of the day you could end the forwarding from your cell phone or your desk phone.
We had a regional office where our boss wanted to make us seem more “local” so he bought us all “local” cell phone numbers. Then we forwarded those cheap phones to our real phones. So our business cards could have a Louisiana number on them but I could still carry around my Michigan phone and area code without carrying around a separate device or having to change my number. Many years ago I remember people used to actually change cell phone numbers, particularly when they moved somewhere new. I remember I didn’t do it when I moved to Louisiana because my gut feeling at the time was that eventually cell phone numbers would become like social security numbers. Its a number assigned to you “at birth” of getting your first cell phone but that’s about all it really means. There would become a time where you couldn’t rely on the area code of the phone for anything other than that. We are fast approaching that time now.
Forwarding and twinning are still quite common.
You’re right on mobile numbers. People have disconnected their home phones because everyone knows how to reach them on their cells. If you can switch carriers and states without having to change, then why would you ever? There’s just no compelling reason to for the average individual.
I’ve recently invested in this small startup out of Scranton PA called WUPHF. It’s a cross portal messaging app that sends the message to your phone via text, email, voice mail and fax
There’s probably one person on this entire site that has to look that up. (me)
At least I recognized there was a joke there, even if I did have to Google it to find the reference.
Voicemail still has it’s place!
‘We’re trying to reach you concerning your car’s extended warranty’ 
I have this horrible habit of calling people back without listening to the voicemail. Conversation always starts:
Someone: did you listen to my message?
Me: of course not!
Yep. That perfectly describes the start of a conversation I have often. You called. I saw the missed call. You know I see my missed calls and return them. Why are we wasting time when you could just tell me what’s going on? And what in the hell did you leave on my voicemail that you couldn’t have just texted me?
On the flipside I leave voicemails all the time. But ONLY for work. I only do it just in case that person is a voicemail person, and to be able to say I left a voicemail if I’m ever questioned about it. And when I leave a voicemail I typically have an email, text or both that explain the subject and the fact that I left a voicemail. I never leave a VM and just leave it at that. I can’t remember the last time I left a voicemail in my personal life. The only times I can remember doing it is when I want someone to hear my voice on a special occasion or I’m mad about something.
I leave the worst meandering voicemails. Like a walkabout of my thoughts. You know they’re bad voicemails when you say, “… so anyways…”. I do that A LOT.
I think my worst communication habit is I will send an email and then immediately get up and walk down to your office and say “hey, I just sent you an email. Here’s what it says and what you need to know.” LOL
I didn’t even realize I was doing it until someone pointed it out during a company meeting. She said it in joke form and it got lots of laughs at the meeting, and that’s when I realized she was 100% spot on.
That’s what she said!!!